Uncle Russell on the Daily Show the other night RUSSELL SIMMONS - DISMANTLING ISLAMOPHOBIA, etc. etc.

Russell Simmons quote on the cover of NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Gets him a few points of credibility back...

Not knowing where our great friend is standing since he's moved out to LA LA Land, We loved seeing this on the cover of yesterday's paper.

Classic Russell talkin' Shit with Snoop #RealTalk

Dawn of Def Jam: Rick Rubin Returns to His NYU Dorm Room

this is a great clip from RollingStone.com

In 1984, Def Jam Records, the label that defined hip-hop's commercial and artistic potential, was born in a very unlikely location: a tiny New York University dorm room. Founder Rick Rubin — now a record-industry legend who's shepherded the careers of everyone from Jay Z to the Red Hot Chili Peppers — hadn't returned to that Greenwich Village double-occupancy room in three decades. But for Rolling Stone Films' premiere documentary, Rick Was Here, he ventured back to Weinstein Hall, room 712, to remember how it all began. "I can't believe it's 30 years," he says. "It's really trippy."

In the film presented by MaggieVision Productions and director Josh Swade, Rubin recalls the energy of Eighties New York, the attempt to make records that sounded like the raw performances he heard in clubs and the wild parties he threw in the dorm room listed as the label address on the first Def Jam 12-inch, T La Rock and Jazzy Jay's explosive, drum machine-driven "It's Yours." The Beastie Boys' Adam Horovitz remembers how he plucked a demo out of a pile in the room and told Rubin, "Man, this is really good, Rick. You gotta check it out." (The tape belonged to a teenage MC named LL Cool J.)

Once he teamed with burgeoning mogul Russell Simmons, the Def Jam age — and hip-hop as an unavoidable market force — officially began. Rubin started DJ-ing for the Beasties and spent two years working with them on their legendary debut album, Licensed to Ill. "Nothing that happened was intentional," he tells us. "Everything was trying to make something cool to play for our friends that they would like."

In Rick Was Here — which arrives as Def Jam is celebrating its 30th anniversary with a new box set and special concert tonight at Brooklyn's Barclays Center — Simmons, LL Cool J, Rubin's college roommate Adam Dubin, former Def Jam president Lyor Cohen and more tell the story of how it all became possible. "Make it yours," Rubin says. "That's the thing that can change the world."

Dick Clark w/ RunDMC & Jam Master Jay (1985)

Believe it or not, Dick Clark, when we all met him, was incredibly cool.

R.I.P.

The photo above was taken backstage, just after Run-DMC's 1st ever performance (and in fact the 1st Hip-Hop performance ever) on Dick Clark's American Bandstand.

Below is another photo I took, of L.L. Cool J a couple of years later,


And here's a classic shot of Dick Clark, Run DMC, Jam Master Jay, Rick Rubin, Bill Adler and Russell Simmons taken that same 1st time in 1985:



* thanks to Bill Adler (Hip-Hop's O.G. publicist and archivist) for digging these out of his own files quicker than i could find them in mine!

Russell can't do yoga now for a while - previously unpublished cont.

Russell got hurt by one of his rich people doctors last month, so bad he got an infection, in his hand from a routine blood test. So bad it fucked up tendons in his hand to the point of extreme pain and they had to operate! So now he's wearing a cast on his hand and some other shit on his arm that my wife says makes him look like a Transformer! Not only that, he's got an assistant who's got to help him get dressed and send text messages for him!


So anyway here was a chance to share a previously unpublished photo I took of my boy Russ on his roof top back in the mid 90's some time. (This was actually an apartment that he originally bought from Cher, that I think Chastity used to live in as well, or maybe it was just Elijah Blue, I don't know for sure, just mentioned that since they've been in the news recently with some interesting talk of surgery themselves).

Here's another shot of Russ with Run, Jam Master Jay and DMC, taken around 1985 or '86 during the shooting of "Tougher Than Leather"